Calgary Real Estate

Designer's touch gives vintage wares new life

Accountant brings eye for thrift to furniture business

Tara Jamieson traded her job as an accountant for refurbishing furniture.

Photograph by: Leah Hennel
, Calgary Herald

Tara Jamieson is doing what she loves the most: playing with paint.

Last year, after spending all of her spare time in her garage, sanding, stripping and painting the dressers, tables and nightstands she picked up second-hand, Jamieson decided it was time do what she loves full time. So, she started her own business as a designer and contractor and recently opened her studio, Lauren Lane Decor, where she designs and sells refurbished vintage furniture.

"Basically, my whole social life became my garage," she says. "All I wanted to do was work on furniture. I figured, if you're going to spend every free moment doing this, you've got to at least cover expenses."

As an accountant who has worked in the oil and gas industry for 10 years and being the "biggest bargain hunter around," Jamieson likes a good deal. So she stalked weekend garage sales and scoured online classifieds, buying old furniture and giving it new life with a fresh coat of paint.

Then she started listing her refinished pieces online - and the e-mails came flooding in. Some with more than 100 inquiries, solidifying the idea - or, as she says, her "light bulb" moment - that refinishing furniture was something she should be doing full time.

So she started to do some research, following other designers' blogs and eventually starting her own to get feedback from others in the industry.

"I posted my projects and what I was working on and then started to refinish furniture simply because I wanted to make something in purple or some crazy colour," Jamieson says.

"From there, it's just exploded."

In addition to being chic, her sense of thrift and love for upcycling also makes her pieces affordable.

"I grew up in a home where my family didn't have a lot of money, but my mom always made our home look so beautiful with her hands - and that kind of rubbed off on me."

And Jamieson's passion and creativity is getting noticed.

In addition to her new Ogden studio, Jamieson is also designing furniture for the Frilly Lily stores as the franchise expands, and doing work for Uniquities Architectural Antiques and Salvage.

"It's great for the Calgary design community to have a new option," says Shantz, who specializes in 19th-century European furniture.

"As an antique dealer, if you're not licking or smelling the piece, you're touching it. And, when you touch painted pieces, you don't want to feel the shellac - you want to feel this nice chalky feel to it."

Jamieson achieves a quality high-end finish by using painter Annie Sloan's chalk paint, which is renowned in the European furniture and antique industry. It goes onto any surface (with a few exceptions) with no priming, no sanding and no preparation work. Jamieson is not only one of the very few people to be using the paint in Canada, she is also the nation's only Annie Sloan retailer.

"We have pieces here painted with Annie Sloan paint that we bought in France, so you can imagine my excitement to know

Tara is here in Ogden painting these and bringing in Annie Sloan paint," Shantz says, noting Jamieson has the training and keen understanding about how to use the paint and waxes.

The designer is also sharing her years of experience, teaching beginner and advanced classes at her studio for those who also desire a little DIY. The classes are a full day (lunch is included), where people can gain practical knowledge about refinishing furniture, plus six basic techniques, including paint mixing, distressing, twotones and stencilling.

For the advanced classes, people are able to bring a piece of their own furniture to the studio and use Jamieson's tools as she walks them through the process.

There is, however, one rule: you have to be able to lift the furniture without any help.

"You can't have your husband backing your dining set through the bay doors," Jamieson says, adding the classes are small, with just eight people. "I want to be able to help the people and be able to guide them. I just wanted it to be really personal and fun."

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